


i see your coat, that it needs sewing

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Human Castiel, Loss, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6926074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's just looking between the playground sandbox, where angels are waiting to take Castiel home, and the parking lot, where Dean twitches behind the door of the Impala and right into the seat. The glare of the midday sun makes him a shadow behind the bright windshield and nothing more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i see your coat, that it needs sewing

Dean throws a little salute at Cas and Cas nods and Dean is determined that'll be the last of it. Sam's just looking between the playground sandbox, where angels are waiting to take Castiel home, and the parking lot, where Dean twitches behind the door of the Impala and right into the seat. The glare of the midday sun makes him a shadow behind the bright windshield and nothing more.

Sam can't fucking believe this is happening.

One of the angels extends a friendly hand to his. They're always so honored, shaking his one huge hand with two hands, admiration, and reverence. Every one of his sins forgiven or completely forgotten. The way Castiel taught them.

They are wholehearted and accepting.

Meanwhile he can almost feel the frost form behind him, in the direction of the car, even under the beating sun. Because Cas is taking Dean's heart with him and he's not coming back and Dean isn't going to do a damn thing about it.

Stubborn, self-loathing son of a bitch.

This has gotta stop somewhere. Sam doesn't even understand why Cas has to go with the angels. He's graceless, now, and alive. And what he's choosing -- to go back to heaven -- is basically equal to death.

He doesn't believe that Cas has lost his love for his family.

They're _family_. He _can't_ lose his love for them. Sam knows the feeling.

But he's basically leaving Dean down here to rot without him.

Dean refuses to function without Sam. But he will _break_ pretending that he can watch Cas walk away again.

"Can I get one more minute?" he asks the angel in front of him, and gestures to the sandbox.

"Of course, Sam Winchester. There's no hurry anymore."

Sam knows he was trying to be soothing -- all their troubles are gone now, the world won't end, the danger has passed, and everybody's going home. That's supposed to be a good thing. But to him it sounds almost fatal.

Sam pries his hand from the angel's grip and crosses to Cas.

There's a curious look, but Castiel steps back over the edge of the sandbox as the other angels, guardians of the path to heaven, fall back a bit.

"Sam?"

"I have to ask you something and you've gotta be totally up-front with me, man."

Confused, Cas nods. "I'll do my best."

"Cas. Listen. Have- have you never--" he restarts, "Have you ever considered, like. Staying here? Staying... with Dean? Just, you know, waiting on this heaven thing until. I mean. Until we can meet you there?"

Cas looks over his shoulder but the angels aren't listening in. There's no judgment. They're smiling, pushing each other on the swings. Happy, at last.

"I would consider staying, Sam but it's not my story."

"Your story?"

He gestures slightly, between Sam and the car. "It's about you. About you two and the car. And the road. Fighting evil. I want your lives to be what you mean for them to be. You never deserved to have heaven meddling with your lives. I want you to be happy without them. Without us. The way it should have been if the world were kinder to you."

Sam is baffled. "You've been with us for years. How is that just something you think you can hit backspace on? You're alive man. You're part of this life. Our life. Cas..." he shoots a paranoid look over his own shoulder, but Dean hasn't moved from the car since he shrugged into it, quickly, before emotion could betray him. "If this is about us being in our places? Your place," Sam knocks his knuckles into Cas's chest, "is right here."

Cas takes a long look between Sam's hand and the playground and the parking lot and the trees and the car.

"When you go away, my brother's a mess. Do you understand that?" Sam asks "Do you know _why?_ "

Cas clenches his jaw. "Dean feels sorry. About everything. He thinks everything is his fault. He blames himself too much."

"Yeah, he does. He thinks he's toxic. He thinks you wouldn't in a million years just _stay_ if he asked. He doesn't think you would stay and be human and have a house and a life and a family all your own. Let alone a house and a life and a family with him. So he doesn't ask. Cas," he shakes his head. "Don't play clueless angel with me right now. This can't be news to you, dude, he's... Dean, he's, he--"

"We're like family," Cas fills in, but with a tiny shade of doubt. Like he understands that's what Sam's getting at but he doesn't-- _quite_.

"Okay," Sam's willing to start off there, but it's not quite what he's getting at. "Yes. But more."

Fuck it. You know what? At every point in their lives, growing together, hunting together, Sam has filled in the blanks in Dean's knowledge and Dean has filled in the gaps in Sam's skills. Sometimes they've gotta carry each other's words and throw each other's punches. This is what he's here for.

He takes a breath.

"Dean loves you. He just loves you. It's not as mild as it seems. It's deep and it's painful and he feels like a walking trash can. He thinks he's an absolute dumpster and that nobody could possibly love him back. And Cas? I think he's wrong. I think you could show-- I donno. Cas, I guess I don't know. I don't know if you can love him. But if there's a part of you-"

Cas's fingers touch down on Sam's chest, one-two-three-four, splayed like he's gonna push him away but he freezes like that.

"He's told you this?" Cas asks after a long pause, squinting slightly.

Sam gives him a _look_. "You know he blames himself for everything. You know he think's he's a 'burden' or some bullshit, Cas, but-"

"He loves me," Cas asks, to clarify, "I know that-- but not that-- he's _told_ you this?"

Sam shakes his head. "He didn't have to tell me, Cas. I know what a shitheap feels like. I know what it was like after I lost-" Sam stops himself, swallows. "I know what he looked like after. After every time you left. He mourned. He's behind me right now, in that car, pining. Thinking about drinking. Watching you choose to leave. Watching you choose heaven over him," Sam says, plainly.

"That's not true," Cas looks offended.

He's not sure which part Cas is stuck on, seeing as he's still standing there stock still. It comes to the same result, though.

"Prove it," Sam challenges.

Cas drops his hand and steps back. His shoes knock into the side of the sandbox and he stares over Sam's shoulder, at the car.

But all at once, he just turns. He rounds away from Sam and goes back to the angels.

Sam sighs and stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets.

He hears the car start up.

Dammnit.

Sam aims a half-hearted kick at some playground equipment and turns to trudge back to the passenger seat.

He hears the clatter of chains as the angels leave the swing set.

He's really not ready for the spiral of despair waiting for them back at the bunker. He knows where every liquor stash is and knows it was already raided. Dean stockpiled for this inevitability. He knew they couldn't keep Cas for too much longer. Sam should have known the booze would start disappearing into Dean's room when he started showing up in the kitchen at 6 a.m. with a tumbler in his hand instead of a coffee mug, grimacing through fake expressions of relief that the bunker would have more room soon. That they could get back on the road, just the two of them, again.

Dean never had to say it: Cas breaks his heart. Dean invested more of himself in their friendship than he even knew. And after all this, it came out shaped like love. And Dean's never been ready for that.

"Sam," the younger-looking angel calls to him again and he stops, turns. The other angels resume their activities but they watch Cas walk off. Cas walks straight past him.

"Castiel asked if you would wait here for a moment. He said you could explain a phenomenon called 'Sharknado' to us?" the angel sounds deeply intrigued. And, well, okay. But-

He watches Cas walk up to the car and knock three times on the passenger-side window.

In the Impala, Dean's shadow reaches over, rolls down the window and there's a brief exchange.

He unlocks the door and lets Cas climb in.

Sam shakes his head. Sharknado? Of all fucking things, Cas?

That little shit.

«»

Dean is straight-up silent.

He said his goodbyes and he meant them more than Cas probably even cares about.

He went as far as telling Cas that he hated having one less friend in this world.

Then he went to go find a drink.

Cas gets in. Rolls the window back up. Boxes them in there together.

Dean clears his throat. "You had a question," he prompts.

He doesn't look at Cas. He was trying to find things to smile about. He was trying to find his wake-up-and-do-it-tomorrow-anyway smile. Like Frank taught him.

He was having a rough time of it. He didn't want to be tearing up like a little kid with a skinned knee when Sam got back in the car. He wanted to say, "Let's go for lunch," and try to write new memories over beer and burgers and whatever came next that had nothing to do with Castiel.

Dean just hates this long goodbye shit. Pull the plug, already.

"I thought I'd go back to heaven and not continue to complicate your life," Cas says. "I assumed I was..." he sighs, "doing what little I could to reverse the damage we did to you."

"By leaving," Dean says, for no reason. The words just tumble out of his mouth, not yet angry, but bitter and hurt and it's too late to conceal that.

"I assumed we were doing less harm that way," Cas nods. "But now I'm not sure I wouldn't be doing you harm by leaving when you need someone, Dean."

Dean locks up tight. "You know me. Got all I need. Car. Sam. Road." He keeps his eyes on the windshield though he doesn't see it or the sky above or Sam gesticulating some wild story at the angels.

Haltingly, Cas turns in his seat and says, "I think it's time we started sticking to one language."

"Language," Dean repeats, blank.

"I think it's time we start saying what we mean."

Dean says nothing. And it's quiet for a while.

"So, I'll go first," Cas tosses his hands up and drops them back to his knees in one of those fresh, human gestures he's so fond of trying out these days. "I was leaving because I assumed I was one, long interruption in your life. I thought I would be relieving you of a burden by leaving."

Dean's wound so tight he can't help the "tch" that bursts from the back of his throat.

Relieving him of a burden? He'd be leaving a hole, not lifting a weight. A vacant space in the bunker. A warm shoulder under his palm completely gone. No one to exchange stilted but honest words with. He wouldn't be able to watch Cas discover the little things there are to love about humanity. Cas would just be gone. Rejecting humanity entirely now that his body is stable and he has his shit together.

Leaving again. Just leaving again.

Cas takes that negative noise for at least part of what it is. "You disagree."

Dean doesn't move or nod.

"Dean, do you want me to stay?"

"I want you to do what's right by you. I want you to do whatever it is you wanna do with your life."

Dean still doesn't look at Cas.  
He can give him the right answer. But he isn't sure that, if he looks, he'll be able to mean it.

Cas takes one deep breath and his hands flex at the corner of Dean's vision. "This is what they mean by 'pulling teeth,' I'm pretty sure," he says, wry. "How about this, instead." With that, Cas reaches out between them and tugs at Dean's arm.

He keeps them crossed but glares down at the hand and then up at Cas. No longer blank, no longer staring. Getting angry, really, that Cas is drawing this out. That Cas is _making him_ look.

"Sam just told me you love me."

In a flash the anger is gone and Dean sits statue still once more, staring back out the windshield, trying to concentrate. Not that he can find the words to hurry this up but maybe he can just weather it and Cas will go and this can be over and he won't have to fucking discuss this three minutes before Cas walks back into the light or whatever. If it's gonna happen, he wants it to happen now. Wants it to be _done_.

"Sam said that you love me and when I leave for good you'll feel more broken-- more sad than ever. Dean. Is that true?"

"I can take care of myself," he bites out instantly.

"But you love me and it will hurt."

Dean's too busy keeping his throat, his head, his everything under control to spit out the words he should say. Whatever would release Cas at this point is so very the opposite of the truth that not even an all-star lying bastard like him can force them from his jaw.

Castiel is still stronger than him. Made of sterner stuff even if he's using up oxygen, now. When he tugs again, he doesn't use that strength. He does it more like.  
More like a question.

"Love doesn't have to hurt," Cas offers.

**Author's Note:**

> ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjQxf0YjyUs))


End file.
